Passion's Prey: The Shadow Shifters

by A. C. Arthur

  Her tongue flattened over a spot on the bottom of his neck, just before his shoulders began. X sucked in a breath and thought about not responding. Then her tongue circled the tattoo she’d asked about, and blood rushed through his body, resting in throbbing persistence at his dick.

  “The moon dripping with blood,” he told her in a voice that had grown gruff. “It’s death.”

  “Hmmm,” she mumbled.

  Her fingers grabbed the hem of his shirt and she pulled. The shirt ripped up the center. Caprise continued to tear at it until she was pulling the remnants down his arms. She looked satisfied as X peered at her through eyes he’d known had shifted to his cat. The beast lurked just beneath his skin, pacing back and forth, wanting nothing more than to reach out and tear away that godforsaken nightgown of hers. The man insisted they both wait and see where she planned to take this new conversation.

  One hand flattened over his nipple, her tongue settling on its twin. As she licked and sucked, her fingers teased and touched. Only the discipline he’d been spoon-fed by the military kept him perfectly still. She’d straddled him, her strong legs bracing his hips. The tips of her breasts covered in that silky material whispered over his abs as she moved. He opened his mouth because breathing calmly though his nostrils was no longer an option. His hands had been behind his head where he ordered them to stay, no matter how tempting the idea of touching became.

  “This one,” she said moving down his side, her hands and mouth creating a war of sensations all over his body.

  “It’s the jaguar,” he said through clenched teeth.

  She looked up at him then, her fingers still tracing the outline of the large cat that began at his back and wrapped around to his front. “Your other half?”

  “Our other half,” he said adamantly, holding her gaze with his own.

  Her head dipped slowly, her tongue moving in sweet circles over his abs.

  “So strong,” she said. “So powerful. Always in control, aren’t you, Xavier?”

  He couldn’t think of a good answer because as she’d talked she’d moved lower. Her nimble fingers had undone the snap and zipper on his jeans and were pushing them and his boxers down his thighs. When she’d taken them completely off she slinked back upward, her hands instantly going to his rock-hard length.

  “I wonder if anybody could ever break your control. If you could ever completely let go with someone,” she said, moving her hand from the tip of his dick to the base.

  On the down stroke she paused and looked up at him. “What is it?”

  X licked his lips and took a deep breath. “Piercings,” he told her, knowing instinctively what she was referring to.

  When she’d released his dick it still jutted upward as if begging her to touch it once more. Instead she’d leaned down to get a closer look. One tentative finger ran along the underside of his length where the metal piercings were lined.

  “Does it hurt?” was her next question.

  “It’s the best kind of pain there is” came his reply.

  She looked up at him again, one elegantly arched eyebrow raised. “Really?”

  “Definitely,” he confirmed. “It’s the kind of pain that makes you feel so fuckin’ good you want to scream.”

  His voice was rough, and his words probably would have been considered crass by anyone other than Caprise. Looking up at her he could tell she wasn’t offended, nor was she afraid. There was no intimidation, and the curiosity that had bloomed when she noticed the piercings had now turned to heat. A heat that X prayed would go farther. He wanted her to keep touching him. Better than that, he wanted her to wrap her pretty lips around his thick dick, to take him deep within the heated moisture of her mouth and never let him go. Dammit, he wanted like he’d never wanted before!

  As if she’d read his mind, Caprise extended her tongue and licked over the piercings, her wet tongue applying persistent pressure against the skin covering the metal balls. X sucked in a breath. She licked again and again, like he was the best-tasting lollipop ever created. With each stroke of her tongue the metal balls circled, inciting ripples of pleasure throughout his entire body. X spread his thighs wider. Caprise adjusted herself closer, hands on his thighs, tongue on his dick.

  “Could I make you lose control, Xavier?” she asked after one long lick.

  “You can suck me, Caprise,” he told her, his voice raspy with need. “Now!”

  There was that smile again. The knowing one that spread slowly across her face, making her eyes shine with yearning—her cat’s eyes.

  She was beautiful as she looked up at him, hair falling in a wild mass of strands around her face, chest heaving as she licked her lips. She was hellfire all bottled up in one hot-as-hell package, a hungry little cat just feeling her way around. He wondered if his cat could coerce her to come out and play.

  “Come on, Caprise. You know you want to.”

  Her tongue stroked along her lips again and this time X pulled his hands away, extending his hand so one finger touched the tip of her tongue. She licked around the digit, keeping her eyes focused on his.

  “Yeah, you want to, babygirl. You want to take all this inside and suck every last drop.”

  She purred. Yes, purred like one hungry and soon-to-be-satisfied cat.

  “You want to take control,” he told her as she sucked his finger midway into her mouth. “Take it!”

  Caprise pulled back quickly, letting his finger slip past her lips. He was right, she did want it, had wanted the taste of his length in her mouth since last night when he’d thrust so deeply inside her. So why shouldn’t she?

  Dipping her head, she pulled the tip between her lips and suckled. His gasp was so loud, the rumble of a cat’s awakening coming from deep in his chest. Oh yeah, she was definitely going to take control.

  Caprise took his length completely, letting the tip rest at the back of her throat as another one of those pesky purrs escaped. He seemed to like that because his shaft throbbed in response. Up and down she worked his length, soaking him with the moisture from her tongue, sucking him hard and deep with the suction of her jaws. His hips lifted off the bed, his fingers burying deep in her hair, pulling until she almost wanted to scream from the prickles of pain. That pain spurred her on, made her take more of him, cupping his heavy balls between her fingers, massaging them until they grew tighter and tighter.

  X pumped fast, guiding her head to match the speed. He cursed and he moaned and he wanted to come more than he wanted to take his next breath. Caprise could tell and felt an amazing sense of accomplishment wash over her. In this hotel room, in this moment, she had the biggest and most lethal Shadow Shifter in the palm of her hand, literally and figuratively.

  His release came with an explosion that almost knocked her off her game. But Caprise quickly rebounded, accepting all he had with deep swallows and loud moans. When he suddenly jerked her upward by her waist, pushing her nightgown out of the way and positioning her over his still-hot and heavily aroused dick, she could have gasped. But she didn’t. Instead she let out a low growl of her own, felt her incisors lengthen and poke against her lower lip. She’d let her loose. Let the cat inside come out to play, something that had not happened in what seemed like forever.

  “There you are,” he said with a knowing smirk. “There’s my babygirl.”

  She stretched, lifting her arms, arching her back, letting the wet lips of her vagina rub along the tip of his length. It felt good, it felt long overdue as the cat inside stretched with her.

  “Pretty, pretty, pretty,” X was saying as he pushed down the straps of her gown to expose her breasts.

  He palmed them both, squeezing as if he fully expected milk to shoot through the nipples and into his mouth. Again with that pleasure–pain; his grasp was almost too tight—she was about to scream. But then there came pleasure soaring through her like a tidal wave, hitting smack in the center of her vagina where its reaction incited a creamy release.

  When he took one turgid nipple in
to his mouth, held it between his teeth and moved his head from side to side, Caprise thought she would die from the pain, or the pleasure. She couldn’t distinguish anymore. His hands gripped her ass, separated her cheeks, and felt everything in between. She was so slick his fingers just slid from one entrance to another, around her clit, through her plump folds, then sank into her waiting center. She jerked and gyrated with him, only to receive a warning in a voice so deep and so steady she almost trembled.

  “Not yet. Not until I say so,” he told her.

  Ordinarily Caprise wasn’t good at taking orders, even those spoken in such a serious tone, but this one kept every muscle in her body still. Biting down on her lower lip was all she could do to keep from yelling out with the intense pleasure that seemed to be strangling her.

  “Control doesn’t come easy,” he told her. “You want it, you’ve got to take it. So tell me, do you want it?”

  She whimpered, hated the sound, then hissed through teeth she tried to keep closed.

  “Yes,” she said on a ragged release of breath. “I want it!”

  “Then take it,” he offered, lifting her hips and planting her center over his tip once more.

  Caprise slammed down on his length, so hungry to get all of him inside. She undulated her hips, rested with the feel of him so full and deep inside her. Then she pulled up and slammed down until they were both breathless. His upward thrusts were quick and hard but she matched them, loved the magnificent feeling they incited. He grabbed her breasts again, growling with every stroke. After a few moments she couldn’t tell who was growling, purring, roaring, whatever. The air was thick with arousal, the scent cascading around them both until release finally came with the force of a hurricane, sweeping them both up in its windy grasp, dumping them like objects—satiated objects—in the center of the bed, where they could do nothing more but collapse.

  * * *

  His nightmare began the moment Caprise’s touch was replaced by Jeremiah’s—the filthy bastard’s. X roared the instant he recognized him. It was the scent at first, stale potato chips and liquor, so much liquor he was always amazed the man could stand up on his own, let alone do the vile things he’d done to him.

  “You’re my boy,” he used to say to him.

  X cringed from the memory.

  “You’re my boy.”

  It sounded sick, the tone, the way he dragged out the one-syllable word boy to make it sound as nasty as X felt inside.

  “No!” X roared back.

  But the idiot kept coming. He kept walking toward him. X backed against the wall. He didn’t want to run, didn’t want to be a sissy as his father had called him. He wanted to stand strong like a man.

  “You’re always gonna be mine,” he said, coming closer, taking off his shirt as he approached.

  His boxers were dirty and twisted around his waist, his vile body part peeping with disgusting clarity through the slit.

  “Stop playing now. You know what to do.”

  X knew what he didn’t want to do. What he wasn’t going to let this fucker do to him ever again. Inside him something was shifting, like somebody was moving inside him. His arms trembled, his heart beating so fast he thought it would burst clear through his ribs. He kept breathing, taking in deep breaths, then letting them out quickly. Everything around him seemed like it was spinning—everything but the man who would soon become X’s demon.

  When he was close enough he reached for X, touching his hand lightly to his shoulder.

  “I sure do like you, boy,” he told X.

  Abruptly the spinning stopped and the rippling inside X intensified. With hands more powerful than he could ever imagine X grabbed the man’s wrist, twisting it as he removed it from his arm.

  “Don’t touch me,” X told him through clenched teeth. “Don’t. Ever. Touch. Me. Again!”

  The man opened his mouth, was about to say something else, but X kept twisting his wrist until he heard the bones cracking beneath his strength.

  “Let go, let go,” he pleaded, falling to his knees.

  But X didn’t hear him. He just reached for the other wrist, breaking that one, too. “You don’t deserve to touch anyone,” he told him as he looked down at him and saw something totally different. It was still the dirty old man who’d lived next door to them, the one who’d asked X’s mother if X could come over and do odd tasks for cold cash. The one who’d taught X not to trust anyone … ever.

  “You don’t deserve to live,” X said dropping the man’s wrists and reaching for his neck. “You sick, dirty, bastard!” he roared over and over again.

  And then it was dark, the scent of blood filling the air. X opened his mouth to breathe and choked as liquid filled him. The taste was acidic and made him heave. He tried to stand but sat back quickly as the room swam out of control. His heart pounded, echoes ringing in his ears. My boy. My boy. My boy.

  “X, it’s just a dream. It’s just a dream,” he heard a female voice whispering.

  Hands touched his shoulders, wrapping around his waist as she hugged him from the back. She continued to tell him it was just a dream, rocking slowly back and forth as she held him, comforted him. Nobody had ever comforted X before. Ever.

  He opened his eyes slowly to the darkness of the room and remembered where he was, who he was with. Caprise was right. It had been a dream. A stupid fucking dream that he had all the time, one that even with death on his hands did not cease to haunt him. His skin rippled, the cat struggling to break free. It wanted to run, to roar, to kill this ugliness inside once and for all.

  But she held him too tight.

  “Dreams aren’t real. They can’t hurt you,” she was saying to him. “You wake up and they go away. Everything that happened in the dream goes away.”

  Her voice sounded distant even though she was right there with him, holding him so close he could feel her heartbeat as if it were his own. X rested his elbows on his knees as he sat on the side of the bed. Just when he was about to turn around to tell her he was fine and make a graceful exit to the other room to get his shit together, she spoke again.

  “I have dreams,” she said quietly. “I have them all the time. Sometimes they’re fine and I don’t remember them.” She took a deep breath. “And sometimes … sometimes, I just can’t forget.”

  A part of X wanted to acknowledge he had the same experience, that they were two of a kind. But that wasn’t going to happen. It couldn’t. He remained silent and still.

  She continued, “I can’t forget and remembering hurts. It hurts too much.”

  Her voice hitched like she might be crying and X shot up off the bed, breaking their contact.

  “I’m going to the kitchen to get a drink. You want something?” he asked, the coarse, bitter sound of his voice echoing in the darkness.

  He didn’t turn, didn’t want to see her sitting vulnerably on the bed looking up at him. He just didn’t.

  After a few silent moments she said in the barest whisper, “No. I’m fine.”

  “Good,” he bit out. “So am I.”

  But as he stalked out of the bedroom X knew that wasn’t true. They were both liars and cowards.

  They were two of a kind.

  Chapter 15

  X had just checked the clock on the microwave, wincing only slightly to learn it was just a little after one in the morning. The roaring sounded a second before there was a light knock at the door. His instincts were momentarily torn. The roaring was coming from outside. There was a cat out there, a big, hungry cat from the sound of its cry.

  Caprise was still in the bedroom and someone was at the door. With a curse a he moved to the door, pulling it open, ready to cut loose on whoever the fool was on the other side at this hour of the night.

  “You hear it, too?” Bas asked the moment he saw X.

  X nodded. “What the fuck is it and how long’s it been out there?”

  “Just before you arrived,” Bas said. “It’s a cat no doubt.”

  “You’ve never had c
ats out here before?”

  “No,” Bas replied as they both headed to the patio. They looked out into the dark, heard the roar again, and knew it was calling for them. This was no ordinary cat; it was a shifter.

  “Let’s go get the bastard,” X said.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Bas replied.

  “I’m coming,” Caprise put in.

  X spun around at the sound of her voice. “No the hell you’re not.”

  “You don’t control me, Xavier,” she said with quiet authority. “I can go wherever I want.”

  “You two are tiring me out,” Bas said with a light laugh. “This is serious, Caprise. You could be hurt.”

  “Or I could help. Now are we going or are we chatting? That cat out there sounds like he’s ready to play,” she snapped.

  Bas shrugged. “She’s a Topètenia all right,” he said, moving past Caprise and back into the living room. “I’ve got a small group of guards downstairs. If you’re coming, let’s go.”

  X looked at her again. Her eyes were already the melted honey orbs of her cat, thin black slits against an almost luminescent background. She’d slipped on some pants and a tank top, hardened nipples pressing through the material. Her sharp teeth were visible when she spoke, clawed fingers at her side.

  “Let’s go,” he said finally and moved past her out the door.

  * * *

  “These buttes drop off dramatically in some spots,” Bas said from the head of the group.

  X was traveling directly behind him, with Caprise only about two feet to the rear. That’s exactly where he wanted her to remain. Close enough for him to protect her at all times. If anything happened to her out here …

  “The cat’s this way,” X said, more to refocus his thoughts than to add to the conversation.

  “Right” was Bas’s reply. “There’s two guards ahead of us a couple feet. The minute he’s spotted we’ll know.”

  “What the hell’s he doing out here is what I want to know,” X stated.

  “He’s a Rogue. What do you think he’s doing out here?” Caprise retorted.